This research synthesis investigates the topic of movies in education, and explores advantages and challenges when using movies as a tool for language development in the English classroom. With the framework of language learning theories and methods, scholarly journal articles are synthesized to explore significant themes within this area. There are several advantages relating to the use of movies in language teaching, such as the benefits of multimodality, authentic language input, and knowledge construction. The challenges that might influence the benefits of the use of film as a teaching tool are, for instance, how to create tasks that make the viewing of movies more than just entertainment for learning language and knowledge development.

Research has shown increasing interest in the influence of learner psychology on second language acquisition (e.g. Ellis, 2019; MacIntyre, Gregersen & Mercer, 2019). This research has demonstrated that motivation, focus, and feelings of autonomy and self-efficacy are particularly important in creating the necessary conditions for learning to occur (e.g. Dörnyei, 2009; Norton & Toohey, 2011; Piniel & Csizér, 2016; Robinson, 1995, 1997). When these factors converge, a learner can experience flow, which has been described as the “optimal experience” of engagement (Csíkszentmihályi, 1975, 1990, 2008) and has been linked to language learning success (Hong et al., 2017). Existing research has shown that student-centered, open-ended, authentic, and competitive activities tend to generate more flow than their opposites (Egbert, 2003; Zuniga & Rueb, 2018). However, these studies are scarce and have focused on a very limited quantity of immediate language-class activities, thus excluding many other possible flow experiences from consideration. To expand this line of research, this study seeks to determine what types of language-class activities generate the most flow, as well as which of the theorized psychological components of flow are most strongly associated with such experiences. Eighty-two North American undergraduate, intermediate-level (estimated CEFR B1/ACTFL intermediate mid-high) students of French, Italian, German, and Spanish completed a questionnaire about their lifetime language-learning experiences. First, the participants rated a list of activities on perceived overall flow using a Likert scale. Next, they rated the same activities on four theorized psychological components of flow (enjoyment, focused attention, control, positive challenges) also on a Likert scale (Csíkszentmihályi 1975, 1990, 2008; Egbert, 2003; Zuniga & Rueb, 2018). Finally, they answered open-ended questions about salient language-class experiences. The results of this study support the hypothesis that student-centered, open-ended, authentic, and competitive activities would generate more flow than their opposites (teacher-centered, closed-ended, inauthentic, and non-competitive). The results also revealed that enjoyment and challenges best predict flow. While competitive activities were shown to be particularly strong flow generators in the quantitative analysis, the qualitative analysis of the open-ended survey responses showed student-centered activities to be particularly associated with high-flow experiences, though usually in conjunction with other flow-generating categories. When taken together, these results suggest that, in order to create learning-favorable conditions through flow, teachers should use activities that belong to as many flow-generating categories as possible while also paying special attention to students’ perceptions of enjoyment and the challenges-skills balance. / Spanish

Ce projet de recherche doctorale vise à explorer une intégration réfléchie des TICE, en particulier le tableau numérique interactif (TNI) et la tablette tactile, pour l’enseignement-apprentissage de l’anglais langue étrangère dans le paradigme de l’approche actionnelle, recommandée par le ministère de l’Éducation nationale. Notre étude prend appui sur une recherche compréhensive,instituée en tant que projet pilote, suivie d’une recherche-action collaborative. Dans le cadre de cette seconde recherche, quatre expérimentations ont été menées avec quatre professeurs exerçant dans des classes d’anglais : deux à l’école élémentaire (CE2 et CM1-CM2), une au collège (3ème) et une au lycée (Terminale). Cette étude cherche à comprendre comment certains outils interactifs peuvent apporter une plus-value en classe de langue aujourd’hui et s’ils sont compatibles avec une approche actionnelle de l’enseignement de l’anglais. Cette synergie entre approche et outils semble s’opérer et permettre de renforcer chez les apprenants l’engagement cognitif dans des tâches plus authentiques,la collaboration entre pairs, l’autonomie et la motivation. Les enseignants ainsi impliqués dans un processus de recherche-action collaborative s’initient à la recherche, conscientisent leurs compétences technopédagogiques et adoptent une posture réflexive sur leurs propres pratiques d’enseignement, dans un objectif de développement professionnel. / This doctoral research explores the integration of classroom technologies, particularly the interactivewhiteboard (IWB) and the tablet, in the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom in task-basedteaching practice, in accordance with Ministry of Education guidelines. Following a pilot studytaking a global approach to classroom research, the main study examines empirical data collected inaction research projects involving four teachers in two primary school classes (8-9 year-olds and 9-11 year-olds) and two secondary classes (14-15 year-olds and 17-18 year-olds). The goal of the studyis to understand the pedagogical affordances of interactive tools for EFL teaching, to consider theircompatibility with task-based teaching and to determine what added value they may contribute tolanguage teaching and learning. Findings suggest a synergetic relationship between interactivetechnologies and task-based language teaching which improves learners’ cognitive engagement inactivities, fosters social and collaborative learning, and also promotes independent learning, taskauthenticity and L2 motivation. Benefits to the participating teachers include an introduction tocollaborative action research, the consolidation of their technopedagogical skills, and the adoption ofa reflective posture towards their own teaching practices, all of which hold promise for continuingprofessional development.